


Passageway

by Lynse



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Creepy, Dark, Gen, Ghost Portal!Danny, Ghost Portal!Danny Fenton, Manipulative Ghosts, Mild Horror, Suspense, Tumblr Ask Box Fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-20
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2019-08-04 21:24:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16354580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lynse/pseuds/Lynse
Summary: AU. The Fenton Ghost Portal in the basement lab is empty, broken. Instead, the portal is inside Danny--and even when he knows something's coming, he can’t stop it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here](https://ladylynse.tumblr.com/post/170508408196/falling-tear-drops-id-nearly-forgotten-that) and moved over since I recently had a request to post more of my tumblr fics on this site. Not my AU--apparently it started with tumblr user electoweenie but they deactivated their blog--but I was asked if I'd ever written it or would write it, and, well.... I'm a little shaky on the details of the AU, but I figured I could string something together and make the rest up. Likely to have sporadic updates; this'll be more a collection of related one-shots forming a story than anything else, I think. Standard disclaimers apply.

Danny sat very still in his desk, not listening to a word Mr. Lancer was saying. It was safer that way. He had to keep his mind blank. There had been too many…accidents. No one had pieced it together yet, not even his parents, but that was only a matter of time.

The cold feeling within his body grew, and he tried not to shiver.

 _Don’t think cold._ (Ice monsters and yetis.) _Don’t think hot._ (Dragons and fire demons.) _Don’t think. Don’t think. Don’t think._

“Please, please, please, no,” Danny mumbled, closing his eyes and tightening his grip on the edges of his desk. “Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop.”

Hard wood beneath his fingertips, grooves cut into otherwise smooth sides through wear and tear and the dedicated filing of bored students. The constant drone of Lancer’s voice, the occasional scratch of pen on paper, creaking desks as students shifted in their seats. A sneeze. Higher-pitched murmuring followed by quiet laughter. A rustle of paper. Birds, singing outside—

 _Don’t think birds._ Those vultures— _No._

He could feel it coming, whatever it was, trying to claw its way out from inside him. Icy talons raked across his gut, climbing higher, reaching past his heart, past his lungs—

Danny coughed and saw faint wisps of his breath. He plastered one hand over his mouth and shot the other into the air, waving it frantically. 

“Yes, Mr. Fenton?”

He was already halfway out of his seat. “Sorry, Mr. Lancer. I think I’m going to be sick.”

He ran, not waiting for verbal permission, let alone a hall pass, and Lancer let him go, maybe because he _did_ look sick. He certainly _felt_ like he was going to vomit. Whatever was churning inside of him wasn’t content to stay there much longer. It was hard to breathe—his lungs felt frozen—but he still pushed himself toward the bathroom and the little privacy it offered.

The violent coughing started as he reached the water fountain, and he saw the bit of water still clinging to the sides of the fountain’s drain freeze on his way by. Seconds later, he was hanging over the toilet, convinced that whatever was inside was trying to kill him. He couldn’t breathe for coughing, and he felt faint, sinking to his knees and clinging to smooth porcelain, waiting for it to be over….

“Danny? You okay in there? Lancer sent me to check on you.”

Tucker.

Danny wanted to say something, but he could only retch in response. Icy mist filled the stall. The bowl was full of frozen water, and hoar frost was settling on every surface. He couldn’t tell if he was shaking because it was so cold or because he couldn’t stop gagging and coughing.

“Danny?”

The stall door creaked open; he hadn’t remembered to lock it. 

He retched again, and this time he could feel something struggling up his throat. He tried to cough, to get it out of there, but he couldn’t draw breath. His chest heaved. He could feel something scrabbling for purchase in his mouth. He gagged. His mouth was full of feathers.

The head emerged first, followed by one wing and then the next, and then it was out of his mouth. He gasped, gulping in the precious air, still frigid but no longer intensely cold. He leaned back against the cold cement blocks of the wall, exhausted. The bird—blue, ethereal, and thankfully much smaller than those vultures had been; maybe some sort of tern—shook itself off and squawked at him before flying through the wall.

The ice finally began to melt.

“Danny, what _was_ that?”

He’d forgotten about Tucker.

“Is…is this what you’ve been hiding from me and Sam?” A shaky breath from behind him. “I mean, I can’t exactly blame you, dude, but that….”

Tucker didn’t—couldn’t—finish.

He didn’t need to.

Danny closed his eyes. “I’ll figure this out,” he whispered. “I’ll figure out how to make it stop, or at least how to control it. I just…haven’t yet.”

“Sam and I can help,” Tucker offered, but they both knew the truth of the matter. Sam and Tucker wouldn’t be able to help him with this. Jazz wouldn’t be able to, either, if he decided to confide in her. He wasn’t even sure his parents would be any help. Ghost experts or not, they’d never mentioned anything like this.

Whatever this was, he was on his own.


	2. Chapter 2

Danny hated going into the basement. It wasn’t the unpleasant smell of chemicals or burnt ectoplasm or the way the harsh, fluorescent lights reflected off all the metal that bothered him so much. It was the gaping hole in the wall, the failed portal, and the memories and pain that it held.

The Fenton Ghost Portal wasn’t functional. At Sam’s insistence, he’d even gone in to check it out after his parents had given up on it—and that’s when _this_ had happened, after the flash and the smoke and the shock and the _pain_.

The portal had never truly worked. Not like it was meant to. His parents thought the occasional ghost turning up was the result of a ‘weakening of the walls between the realms’. As Jack repeatedly put it, “It means we’re getting close, Danny-boy! Soon we’ll be able to study that ectoplasmic scum in its own environment! And whenever one of ‘em slips through, we’ll tear it apart molecule by molecule!” 

They seemed to think they had been building a window.

Danny wasn’t sure the truth had occurred to them, that it was actually a door. A passageway. A curse.

Danny avoided looking at the empty portal as he grabbed his dad’s latest invention, some kind of ghost tracker. It would point to him, of course. It would always point to him. 

He wasn’t sure if he was imagining the scrabbling sound of claws on glass as he walked past shelves of captured ghosts, held in their prisons by his parents’ anti-ecto coating. Not all of them had claws or talons; some were still just formless blobs, with eyes being their only recognizable feature.

He tried not to think about it.

Thinking about it would only invite more to come.

Danny headed back up the stairs two at a time. He slammed the door closed, forgetting for a moment that his parents were right there, and mumbled an apology as they looked at him. He dropped the new invention on the kitchen table and kept walking.

“Danny-boy, you haven’t had breakfast! Don’t you even want some Fenton Toast?”

No. He didn’t want to be anywhere around here when his dad inevitably turned on his invention, something that would occur within seconds, not minutes.

He shook his head, but his mother caught his arm before he could escape. “Are you feeling okay, sweetie? You’re looking a little green around the gills.”

Something inside him was roiling, and it wasn’t his stomach. “I’m fine,” he said. “I’m just not hungry.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I just….” He shrugged out of his mother’s grip. “I’m tired, I guess. I’m going to go back to bed.”

It was a weekend; they wouldn’t question that. The only reason he’d gotten up this early was because one of the ghosts had managed to edge its jar off the end of the shelf this morning, smashing it to the floor and escaping. Maddie had spent half the morning securing the other jars in their shelves to avoid a repeat incident while Jack had tried to track down the ghost with the Assault Vehicle, to no avail. Jazz was still holed up in her room, claiming that she was working on an important assignment. If Danny had thought he could get away with it, he wouldn’t have emerged, either, but he doubted his parents would have believed that.

So emerge he had, and then he’d been put to work, fetching this and that, finally grabbing the forgotten tracker from the basement. 

“All right, honey. Let me know if you need anything.”

Danny nodded and made his escape, but his room wasn’t the sanctuary it had once been. Closing the door was no longer a guarantee of solace. Not when it was no longer the only door.

Danny lay down on his bed and stared at the ceiling. Blankness. That was good. It could be anything, it could be nothing, and if that’s all he focused on, maybe this feeling would go away before something could escape. It had worked before.

_Breathe in. Breathe out. Slowly. In. Out. In. Out. Nothing. Anything. Everything._ The ceiling was blank, formless. He could remain calm, and the portal within him could quiet again and close.

He wished he had someone to confide in. Someone who could understand. Someone who wouldn’t look at him with fear. Sam and Tucker…. There was only so much support someone can give you when they know nothing, when they fear what’s happening as much as you do. He couldn’t blame them; he was afraid of this. Everyone would be, if they knew. That’s why he didn’t want to tell anyone. How could you not fear the unknown? _Anything_ could crawl out from inside him, and he couldn’t stop it. He was dangerous, the equivalent of a walking time bomb, only he didn’t know how much damage there would be when—

Danny spun onto his stomach, clung to the side of the bed, and heaved. Nothing came up, not even vapour, and the urge passed. He rolled back over, exhausted, and closed his eyes. Until he could figure this out, he needed a distraction more than anything else. He needed someone to keep his parents busy until he could get this under control. 

He didn’t fear them, not really. They wouldn’t try to tear him apart to find out what was inside him—it definitely felt like something had settled inside him—but he didn’t want to go to them unable to answer anything. Once he had an idea of how this worked, once he could actually explain any of this and be better able to help them help him— That’s when he could tell them. But before that? It would only worry them, and they were busy enough trying to deal with the ghosts he released. He didn’t want to add to their burden any more than he already was.

(Jazz would argue this if she knew. Danny knew that. Jazz would tell him they’d want to know. But she didn’t know what this felt like. He wanted to regain some sense of control. Since this had happened, it felt like he’d had none at all.)

Danny’s stomach turned, and he was gagging even before he was hanging over the bed again. Sickly green vapour spilled from his mouth. He couldn’t seem to swallow it back, couldn’t focus enough to try to throw himself into a detached meditative state to see if that would shut this off. It was coming, whatever it was, and there would be no stopping it.

There was a knock at his door. “Danny? Are you okay in there, sweetie?”

_No._ But he could only retch, bringing up more vapour, and then something solid filled his throat and he had no breath for even that.

He heard the door open and then _thunk_ against the dresser he’d moved in front of it; it was the closest he could get to a lock. “Danny,” came Maddie’s voice, her tone one of tested patience, “I know you want some more privacy, but we’ve talked about this.”

There was a hand coming out of his mouth.

“Are you going to let me in or do I need to ask your father to come up here?”

His throat was being scraped raw. His jaw must be broken. The _pain_ —

Hands found his shoulders and _pushed_. He would have collapsed if he hadn’t been lying down. Was he already on the floor? He couldn’t remember falling off the bed.

“At least answer me, honey.”

The person— _ghost_ —which had just crawled from Danny’s mouth turned to look at him. It had no face, or at least no recognizable features, but then he blinked and suddenly it _did_. More specifically, it had _his_ features.

It opened its mouth and said in his voice, “Sorry, Mom. I’m okay. Just trying to sleep.”

Danny stared at it, unable to find the breath to scream.

“Please keep your doorway clear, sweetie. I know you think I worry too much, but I’m concerned about your safety.”

“Sure, Mom.”

He heard the floor creak as she moved away, the steady thumps of her feet on the stairs. He couldn’t bring himself to look away from the _thing_ that had his face.

It twisted its features— _his features_ —into a smile. “I think I’m going to have fun here.” It stood and walked over to him; he wanted to get up and run, to yell, to do _anything_ , but he was frozen in place. How could it look like him? How could it sound like him? How did it know so much?

It leaned down, and its smile widened. “I’m good at distractions,” it cooed. “Don’t you worry about that.” And then it crouched in front of him and moved in far too close, breathing into his ear, “What you need to worry about is what will happen if you don’t keep our little secret.”

Danny flinched back, closing his eyes and trying to keep still. He wouldn’t win if this ghost decided to fight him, decided to _replace_ him. The thought of that, of what this ghost could do, terrified him. He didn’t open his eyes until he got his breathing under control and could hear above the pounding of his heart in his head.

When he did, he was alone.


	3. Chapter 3

The device sparked and died in Danny’s hands. It was just another failed prototype, another thing he couldn’t use.

His parents didn’t understand the reason for the increase in ghostly activity, but once the ghosts had begun causing trouble, they’d turned from the intent to study to the intent to defend. For every capture and containment device they invented, they created two more offensive weapons with the intent of protecting of Amity Park.

But they didn’t know enough about the ghosts for everything to be effective, and their miscalculations—

“You haven’t learned yet, have you?” the ghost before Danny taunted. It had changed again and was back to wearing his face, using his voice. It knew how much that unsettled him. “You thought you could fight. That’s cute. But you can’t. You don’t know how this works. You don’t understand anything. You don’t even understand yourself.” It smiled at him and tilted its head. “I do.”

Danny tried to swallow down the fear that was crawling back up his throat. The ghost was right; he didn’t know everything. He was still trying to figure it out. And he was failing. And because of that, this ghost was….

Danny didn’t know for sure, but there had been…incidents. Too many for him to believe it a coincidence when he knew what this ghost could do. He’d started keeping a sharper eye out, searching for any sort of clue, and that’s when he’d seen Valerie walk past the Nasty Burger.

Even though he could see her inside, talking to Star.

He’d cut and run without giving Sam and Tucker an explanation, but they had most likely assumed that _it_ was happening again, that something was coming. They couldn’t help him stop it, and he didn’t want everyone to know, so in the end it had become routine for them to distract anyone who tried to follow him while he found somewhere private. It was the only way they knew how to help, the only way he wanted them to help. Everything else was too dangerous.

But he’d thought the weapon he’d stolen from the lab last week would work. 

He hadn’t thought he’d be facing down a ghost unprepared.

The ecto-gun prototype had passed its preliminary tests, but it hadn’t been able to stand up in a real fight. One good blast had sent it flying across the warehouse floor, and even after he’d managed to retrieve it…. Maybe it was frozen, maybe it was fried, but the ghost had disrupted it somehow. He’d had a moment of hope when he’d first tried using it again, but now it wouldn’t even power up.

The ghost lunged forward, and Danny wasn’t fast enough to get out of the way. It tackled him and held him down in a grip stronger than Danny’s own, and its grin grew. The disturbed dust motes had Danny coughing, but somehow, the slight grey coating on the ghost’s hair only made it seem more sinister. “You’ve been very good about keeping our secret,” it said, not seeming to exert any effort in keeping Danny pinned no matter how hard he struggled, “but in light of your little plan, failure though it was, I’m not sure that’s enough.”

Shock stilled him for a moment. “What do you mean?” His voice climbed, betraying his panic if his face hadn’t already done so.

“You’re powerful, but you’re not very useful as you are,” the ghost said frankly. “I should keep you somewhere till I can bring more of my friends out to play. I wouldn’t have to do much more than leave a trail of clues in the wrong direction and make a big show of running away, and then we could have more time together.”

Danny tried to choke out some kind of protest, but it came out as a wordless whine. He wished he thought someone would hear him if he screamed, but he realized now the ghost had led him here on purpose. Towards the old industrial part of town. Through a hole in a loose chain-link fence, in through the side door with the broken lock, and out into the thick dust and cobwebs of some old manufacturing plant.

“Oh, I wouldn’t hurt you more than I need to,” the ghost assured him. “We’re friends, aren’t we?” 

Danny didn’t answer, and the ghost laughed.

“You’ll like my friends, too. We have such fun together, and it won’t take much for you to bring them through.”

Unfortunately, that was true enough. It really wouldn’t. Not when Danny could barely control this.

He’d gotten a bit better at actually emptying his mind instead of picking something to focus on, but he could still count on both hands the number of times he’d actually been successful in closing the passageway inside of him. And the moment he wasn’t alone, the moment he couldn’t focus, the moment this ghost decided to _torture_ him—

It needed him alive, but that was about it. It didn’t need him healthy, or mobile, or really anything beyond conscious enough to allow the portal inside him to open. And considering he’d woken from dreams with ghostly fire searing in his throat or spitting up leaves, he wasn’t wholly sure about the conscious part, either.

The ghost had called him powerful, but it was only the thing inside him that was powerful. 

“My parents will know you’re not me,” Danny whispered. “My sister, my friends—”

“—have never noticed before.” The ghost was dismissive, but the words took away Danny’s breath. He didn’t need to think too hard to understand the implications. The ghost had masqueraded as him before and gotten away with it. It had been planning this. It might have even planned _all_ of this. 

Instead of catching it off its guard, Danny had followed it into a trap.

And now he was going to pay for that mistake.

The ghost abruptly released him and climbed to its feet. “I’ll come get you when I’m ready,” it said. 

Danny stared at it from his position on the cold concrete floor, still trembling and not trusting that the ghost was really letting him go. Maybe it was just another trick. Maybe it was messing with him, wanting him to think he was free before it—

“But just know that if you tell anyone,” it continued blithely, “I’ll possess your sister first. She should be able to remind me how much blood human bodies hold.”

Danny blanched and abruptly found himself fighting the urge to be sick—actually sick, not ghost-sick. He spun onto his hands and knees and gagged, coughing and hacking and heaving. Phlegm splattered onto the floor, and he tried to calm his breathing before something worse decided to follow.

When he finally sat back, he wasn’t surprised to find that he was alone.

Just like last time.

Like he would be next time, unless he could find a way to stop the ghost first.

Danny closed his eyes on his tears and balled his hands into fists, trying to battle his emotions back into submission. He couldn’t afford to lose control. That’s what it wanted. The more chaos there was, the more distracted his parents would be.

It wanted him to panic. It wanted him focused on its threats, too terrified to turn to anyone for help. It wanted his parents focused on all the other ghosts so that they never realized it was there. It wanted his friends to stay ignorant of how deep this went so that he’d be easier to replace when the time came. If he did all that, it would win.

But if he kicked up a fuss, it wouldn’t hesitate when it came to following through on its threat.

It didn’t care about his family or his friends.

It just wanted to control him.

How was he supposed to fight back against a ghost when the only weapons he had didn’t even work?

“There has to be a way,” Danny murmured. “There just has to be.” 

But he didn’t know who he could turn to for help without the ghost finding out. He didn’t even know what his next move should be. Unless his parents invented something that worked consistently…. 

He’d figure something out.

He had to.


	4. Chapter 4

It came when Danny was too tired to keep looking over his shoulder.

In the dissociative fog of too little sleep and too many secrets, he didn’t question his mother’s cooed concern. 

It wasn’t, after all, the first time she’d taken one look at him and ushered him off to bed, insisting he get some sleep before supper, maybe then he would feel better, and he wasn’t running a fever, was he? 

He’d obediently stumbled along right up until she’d turned around with a washcloth instead of a thermometer and held it over his mouth and nose while he struggled.

When he woke with a pounding headache and something that was probably blood crusting his left eye shut, he was handcuffed to some heavy metal shelving by a pair of Fenton Cuffs. Despite practice, he still couldn’t get out of those without a key. He knew dislocating his thumb was a likely necessity, but he had no idea how to do that and cause minimal damage.

The room was dark, but he didn’t need light or two good eyes to see the ghost fiddling with…something…nearby. 

It still looked like his mom.

“You were out longer than I expected,” it laughed without even looking over at him. “I thought you were supposed to be more resilient. Isn’t it thrilling when stories like that are exaggerated?”

“What…what do you want?” Danny rasped, forcing the words past his thick tongue. 

“Oh, you know exactly what I want.” It glanced over at him now, and its smile looked wrong on Maddie’s face. “And you know exactly what will happen if you try to escape.”

“You can’t keep me here.” His voice was more weak than defiant, even to his ears. “They’ll know I’m missing. They’ll find me.”

“They’ll never know to look for you,” it reminded him, “and you can scream all you like, but you’ll never be heard here. Not through concrete that thick.” It nodded at the walls, or at least Danny assumed it did; he couldn’t see much past its ghostly glow. He couldn’t even really see what it had been working on.

“I’ll go find you some food, sweetie,” it said, and this time the inflections of his mother’s mimicked voice were heartbreakingly perfect. “Try to get some rest.”

It strode past him, illuminating more empty shelving units far too heavy for him to hope to move, and vanished through a blank wall.

He was alone in the darkness.

Danny tried to shift to find a more comfortable position, even to have something to lean against that was more solid than the crisscrossing metal bars, but there was nothing but that or open air. The concrete beneath him wasn’t warming to his body heat, either, and he wasn’t sure if he was shaking or shivering. Either way, the crick in his neck was hurting even more now, but he couldn’t even manoeuvre a hand around to rub it. 

He needed help.

He had no way of getting help.

Even if he did, he had no one he could ask without endangering them. Without giving the ghost reason to kill them. He was all alone, no one knew where he was, no one would know he was missing, and this ghost was going to keep him alive long enough to get its friends out and then it was going to kill him, and no one was ever going to know what had happened to him.

The salt in Danny’s tears stung wounds he didn’t realize he’d had on his face, but they were enough to allow him to open his left eye. Not much—it was still mostly swollen shut—but a little bit, and a little bit would be enough. Not that he could see anything, anyway, but it felt better, as much as anything that still hurt could feel better.

“Please.” Danny knew no one would hear his whispers. “Please, I need…. I need someone.” He didn’t know if it was a prayer. “I can’t do this by myself. I need help.”

He groaned and leaned his head on his arms, slumping forward as best he could. He could shift his legs into different positions, and he did, carefully stretching them out when they started to fall asleep, but he could do nothing for his arms, which were bound to the top half of the lowest shelf, stopped from dropping farther by a diagonal bar.

He didn’t think things could get any worse, but then his stomach turned.

“No,” Danny moaned. “No, please, not now.”

But the sickening coldness inside of him only grew stronger, and he couldn’t will it away.

He began to cough.

Something was lodged in his throat, and he couldn’t get it out, couldn’t breathe, but he managed to climb to his feet and lean over, trying to draw air.

It seemed like an eternity before something hit the floor and skittered a short distance away. He didn’t have a chance to find it and see what it was; he only had a moment to gasp in air before something else blocked the airway, pressing it closed as it began to slither its way up his throat. He gagged. Retched. Thought his jaw might break as it pulled itself free, rolling over his arms and away.

He’d collapsed back onto his knees at some point and sagged against the cold metal bars of the shelving unit with his eyes closed, not having any energy to fight whichever of the ghost’s friends had just come through.

“Have you seen my peepers?”

Danny forced open his good eye. “What?” The ghost facing him certainly didn’t look like anyone special; he just looked like a teenager. A teenager who would’ve lived decades ago, but still a teenager, probably around Danny’s own age. And more nerd than someone who’d roll with the ghost who was keeping him here.

The ghost pointed to his eyes and repeated himself before adding, “I can’t see without them.”

“Your glasses?” He thought of what had come first and turned his head in the direction of where he’d heard something fall. “Look over there. Your left.”

A sharp cry of delight a moment later told him the ghost had found them. He turned back to Danny, straightening his glasses, and then frowned and walked closer. “Someone think you were cruisin’ for a bruisin’? You’re going to have a real shiner there.”

Danny just shook his head.

“I don’t like bullies,” the ghost remarked.

“Neither do I,” mumbled Danny.

The ghost paused. Leaned closer and squinted at him. And then he drew back in surprise. “It really is you!”

Danny had no idea what that was supposed to mean, so he just ignored it and closed his eyes, hoping the ghost would go away.

He didn’t. “Why take the pounding? Why didn’t ya just beat feet? Or fight back?”

Danny opened his eyes and let out something that could only generously be described as a laugh. “How could I _fight back_?” he asked. “I’m just _me_ , up against someone like you, someone probably _stronger_ than you. I can’t do anything, and even if I’d tried, they would just…carry out their threats.”

The ghost stared at him. “You…. That’s bogus.”

Danny rattled the handcuffs against the support bar. “You think I wanted this? Any of this?”

“Nobody _wants_ a knuckle sandwich,” the ghost replied, “but that doesn’t mean you didn’t let the other guy do that to you.”

“Why the heck would I do that?”

“So he thinks he can. So he doesn’t know what you can do.”

“But I _can’t_ do anything. That’s my problem!”

The ghost furrowed his brow. “But you’re the young gatekeeper.”

“The what?” Danny didn’t really need the clarification. He already knew what the ghost meant. He was talking about this _thing_ inside of him, the passageway he couldn’t seem to keep closed. He just didn’t understand why the ghost had said it like that was important. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“You really don’t know. How can you not know?”

“Not know _what_?” Danny pressed, but the other ghost wasn’t paying attention to him anymore. He was looking somewhere else, at something Danny couldn’t see in the dark. And then he vanished. “Not know what?” Danny whispered again, just in case the ghost was still around and simply not visible.

He waited.

He didn’t get an answer.

A moment later, his captor breezed in, masked as one of the delivery workers at the Nasty Burger. It tossed a bag at Danny’s feet and went back to whatever it had been working on.

It didn’t seem to care that Danny couldn’t have reached the food even if he’d been hungry enough to eat it.


End file.
